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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Fewer and fewer people are owning more and more of our economy while 1.6 million people work for minimum wage, and 48 million workers (34%) are paid less than $20 per hour. Wealth inequality in the United States is a national obscenity and another indication of our corrupt Congress.
According to Capital One the deal to acquire Discover is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — U.S. banking giant Capital One announced Monday it will acquire financial services company Discover in a $35.3 billion all-stock deal combining two of America’s major credit card firms.
Under the deal, Discover shareholders will receive 1.0192 Capital One shares for each Discover share, a premium of 26.6 percent over Discover’s closing price on Friday.
Acquisition of Discover will help “build a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” said Capital One founder and CEO Richard Fairbank in a statement.
Once the deal goes through, Capital One shareholders will own approximately 60 percent of the combined company, and Discover shareholders will own approximately 40 percent.
Discover is among the United States’ major credit card networks, but is smaller than the top three: Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
The company’s acquisition will “accelerate growth and maximizes value for our shareholders, enabling them to participate in the tremendous upside of the combined company,” Discover […]
David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan:
I am following this Russian space program because I see real danger in this scheme. This represents a major geopolitical threat to the world. I think Putin is frightened and I think he thinks this is his backup move. It won’t kill people, so the U.S. won’t be able to physically attack Russia; it will just disrupt the world’s communications, and cause enormous damage to the U.S. and NATO economies. The Chinese are the wild card here because they will also be affected.
When Russia conducted a series of secret military satellite launches around the time of its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, American intelligence officials began delving into the mystery of what, exactly, the Russians were doing.
Later, spy agencies discovered Russia was working on a new kind of space-based weapon that could threaten the thousands of satellites that keep the world connected.
In recent weeks, a new warning has circulated from America’s spy agencies: Another launch may be in the works, and the question is whether Russia plans to use it to put a real nuclear weapon into space — a violation of a half-century-old treaty. The agencies are divided on the likelihood that President Vladimir V. Putin would go so far, but nonetheless the intelligence is an urgent concern to the Biden administration.
Even if Russia does place a nuclear weapon in orbit, U.S. officials are in agreement in their assessment that the weapon would not be detonated. Instead, it would lurk as a time bomb in low orbit, a reminder from Mr. Putin that if he was pressed too hard with sanctions, or military opposition to his ambitions in Ukraine or beyond, he could destroy economies without targeting humans on earth.
I am increasingly concerned about health care for women in the U.S.. Three things are going on. First, the United States is the only developed democracy that lacks universal birthright healthcare, and doesn’t have a healthcare system instead an illness-profit system. Second, even that inferior system is further constrained by Republican-controlled states that only offer limited OB/GYN medical care. Third, even in Democrat-controlled states a large percentage of hospitals are controlled by Catholics. The result is American women and girls are not getting health care as good as they would get in almost any country in Europe.
Catholics run one-third of Wisconsin hospitals, putting many reproductive procedures off-limits. Credit: Wisconsin Watch
Nurse midwife Beverly Maldonado recalls a pregnant woman arriving at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Maryland after her water broke. It was weeks before the baby would have any chance of survival, and the patient’s wishes were clear, she recalled: “Why am I staying pregnant then? What’s the point?” the patient pleaded.
But the doctors couldn’t intervene, she said. The fetus still had a heartbeat and it was a Catholic hospital, subject to the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” that prohibit or limit procedures like abortion that the church deems “immoral” or “intrinsically evil,” according to its interpretation of the Bible.
“I remember asking the doctors. And they were like, ‘Well, the baby still has a heartbeat. We can’t do anything,’” said Maldonado, now working as a nurse midwife in California, who asked them: “What do you mean we can’t do anything? This baby’s not going to survive.”
The woman was hospitalized for days before going into […]
Here is the latest on the dying newspaper trend and the evaporation of the ethical code that once governed journalism. I think this is a big deal because if you don’t have a local ethical press how do you learn about what is going right and wrong in your local government and community? Social Media? How do you know it is not misinformation?
Iillustration / Photos by iStock
The great American newspaper ain’t what it used to be. At practically every newspaper in the country except for a fortunate few, hard times have reduced page count, eliminated news beats and resulted in the layoffs of thousands of journalists.
The hardest hit, Margot Susca reports in her new book, Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy, have been the chain newspapers — Gannett, GateHouse, Lee Enterprises, et al. — purchased and squeezed by private equity firms like Alden Global Capital. Nationwide, the percentage of newspapers owned by private equity rose from 5 percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2019; they include such storied titles as the Chicago Tribune, the Orange County Register and USA Today, as well as scores of smaller papers. Some papers have been reduced to zombie versions of their former selves as the new owners have shaved them down to minimize costs, depriving readers of the comprehensive coverage they enjoyed in the golden age of newspapers.
Yet another story about the inferiority of American wellbeing compared to that of other developed democracies. Europe has passed its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to protect the privacy of its citizens. But the corrupt American Congress is incapable of passing such protection for us, and this is the result.
Planned Parenthood signage is seen in the Financial District neighborhood of Manhattan on April 16, 2021, in New York City. Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty
According to a letter sent to government agencies on Tuesday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a U.S. company tracked people’s visits to 600 Planned Parenthood locations in 48 states and sold that data to anti-abortion group the Veritas Society, which used the location data to orchestrate one of the largest anti-abortion ad campaigns in U.S. history.
“My office began to investigate Near in May 2023, after an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that an anti-abortion organization used location data from Near to target anti abortion messaging and ads to people who had visited reproductive health clinics,” Wyden says in the letter. “The ad campaign reportedly ran from November 2019 through the summer of 2022, after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, permitting states to criminalize abortion.”
In a meeting with Jay Angelo, Near’s Chief Privacy Officer, Angelo confirmed that as of summer 2022, the company had […]
Thanks to criminal Trump, and the rise of the violent White christofascist movement that has become the Republican Party, this is the kind of nation the United States has degenerated into. Never before in over two centuries have Congressmembers, judges, prosecutors, election workers, and librarians had to fear for their lives. Now each Congressmember who chooses to can get $10,000 to upgrade their personal and family security, as this article explains. I think we should all be ashamed that this is the kind of country we have allowed ourselves to become, and it is only going to get worse if we do not vote Democrat at all levels.
Capitol Police are seen on the East Front Plaza of the Capitol. Credit: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call
As some members of Congress are getting threats on their lives, others are not taking advantage of extra money from a House program meant to improve security at their residences.
Members for the past 18 months have been entitled to $10,000 to implement or bolster existing security at their homes under a program administered by the House sergeant-at-arms that was started under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The voluntary service can be used to install motion sensors, cameras, locks and other measures to fortify the homes of lawmakers, and to provide up to $150 per month for monitoring and maintenance costs.
While officials say more than half of lawmakers have participated in the program, some House members say they have no interest in adding those features, haven’t gotten around to it yet, or have found parts of the program’s requirements too burdensome.
Among those is Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who said his daughter encouraged more security because a group of people had […]
Kelcie Moseley-Morris, - AlterNet / States Newsroom’s Reproductive Rights Today
Stephan:
Although vote result after vote result has shown that the majority of Americans do not want pregnancy termination bills to become law, the MAGAt community and the party it controls keep trying. Meanwhile, healthcare for women in the United States, especially in the states Republicans control deteriorates year by year, as the case data confirms. Here is what if currently going on with this trend.
A woman holding a sign that says not your baby, not your choice Credit: Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
All but seven state legislatures are now in session, and abortion-related bills continue to be introduced, especially in states where the procedure is already banned. It can be hard to monitor them all, so States Newsroom’s Reproductive Rights Today team will track certain bills that could become law in their respective states in a biweekly legislative roundup. Depending on the partisan makeup of a state’s legislature and other state government officials, some bills have a higher chance of passing and becoming law than others.
Abortion is legal in Iowa after a court blocked a six-week abortion ban from going into effect in July 2023. A bill allowing material produced by an anti-abortion group to be used in Iowa’s public school curriculum has not advanced since late January, but another abortion-related bill has cropped up since then.
I thought I was aware of all the negative effects arising from the bias of criminal Trump’s Supreme Court but I did not realize just how wide the bias of that christofascist MAGAt cabal affected the wellbeing of America. I was so appalled when I read this report that I checked three other sources. It is an accurate account.
One factory within many along “Cancer Alley” between New Orleans and Baton Rouge which puts the mostly African American residents at nearly 50 times the risk of developing cancer than the national average, on Aug. 12, 2021. Credit: Emily Kask / AFP / Getty
ST. JAMES, LOUISIANA — For a little while, it seemed like Cancer Alley would finally get justice. The infamous 85-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is one of the nation’s most polluted corners; residents here have spent decades fighting for clean air and water. That fight escalated in 2022, when local environmental justice groups filed complaints with the Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had engaged in racial discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. In a watershed moment, the EPA opened a civil rights investigation into Louisiana’s permitting practices.
But just when the EPA appeared poised to force the LDEQ to make meaningful changes, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry — now the state’s governor — sued. Landry’s suit challenges a key piece of the agency’s […]
